Invergowrie, Dundee, Scotland
July 9, 2010
Innovative research and development projects at SCRI that will lead to more sustainable crops and new more resistant varieties of soft fruit, potato and barley have been awarded over £1.8 million funding from the Technology Strategy Board.
SCRI, Scotland’s world leading crop research centre, won funding for five projects as part of the New Approaches to Crop Protection funding competition. Researchers from SCRI will work with a wide range of business partners.
Director and Chief Executive of SCRI, Professor Peter Gregory, said: “Our success at securing this funding underlines our position at the cutting edge of innovative research in the UK.
“These new projects will complement existing research at SCRI and allow us to come up with novel ideas and solutions to improve agricultural sustainability.”
The barley disease Rhynchosporium results in annual yield losses of 1.4% (~£7M) despite fungicide applications valued at over £25 million. Previously much of the understanding of this disease came from visible symptoms but recent research has shown the importance of extensive growth of this pathogen before symptoms are visible.
The new project will identify, characterise and combine sources of barley resistance to improve durability and use knowledge of different defence mechanisms to improve crop protection strategies to increase the effectiveness of currently available fungicides.
Another project will examine plant-derived resistance to pests and diseases to see how these can best be deployed as part of integrated pest and disease management (IPDM) of soft fruit crops to reduce reliance on chemicals and still produce high quality fruit.
Using raspberry as a model, key genes controlling variation in particular traits can be selected across different fruits and used to greatly reduce the timescale for variety development.
Free Living Nematodes (FLN) are becoming a major problem for UK potato growers costing an estimated £13 million losses annually. Damage is caused directly by FLN feeding on roots and indirectly by transmission of Tobacco Rattle Virus (TRV).
This project will develop a new diagnostic tool to identify direct feeding damage by FLN on commercial crops and allow investigations into tuber quality and virus transmission. Alongside this work molecular markers will be developed to facilitate the breeding of new potato varieties with resistance to TRV. The project is also being supported by the AHDB Potato Council.
Also looking at potatoes is a project that aims to develop new more resistant varieties in an effort to reduce the amount of pesticides used, for reason of cost and their planned withdrawal in the EU over the next 10 years.
It will look particularly at resistance to late blight (LB) and nematodes (PCN) which at the moment cost the UK potato industry approximately £81 million each year. The project will seek to strengthen resistance to LB and PCN into popular potato varieties. University of Dundee staff based at SCRI are also involved in this project.
A new approach to breeding Spring barley is to be developed using genomic selection, which could result in a fundamental change to the way crops are bred and enable targets for increased food production and environmental sustainability to be met. Compared to other temperate crops, Spring barley has a short generation time which make it well suited to develop and test ideas, which may also be applicable to other crops.
BACKGROUND
The Technology Strategy Board is a business-led executive non-departmental public body, established by the government. Its role is to promote and support research into, and development and exploitation of, technology and innovation for the benefit of UK business, in order to increase economic growth and improve the quality of life. It is sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). For further information please visit www.innovateuk.org.
The Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Research and Analysis Directorate (RERAD) invests more than £13 million annually in the work of SCRI, as part of overall funding to its main research providers through the current research strategy. The work funded by the Technology Strategy Board on barley and soft fruit includes support from the Scottish Government worth just under £700,000.
Projects
Symptomless Infection of BarLey: resIstance breediNG and integrated crop protection Strategies (SIBLINGS) – SCRI contact Dr Adrian Newton
Value to SCRI: £257,000
Consortium: KWS UK Ltd, DuPont Ltd, Masstock, SCRI, Rothamsted Research, Mylnefield Research Services Ltd
Breeding for physical resistance traits - protecting soft fruit crops from pests and pathogens – SCRI contact Dr Julie Graham
Value to SCRI: £558,154
Consortium: Mylnefield Research Services Ltd, SCRI, GSK, M & S Ltd, LEAF, T. Thomson Blairgowrie Ltd, Adamstone Farms Ltd, KG Growers Ltd, ReDeva Ltd, ADAS
Strategies for quantifying and controlling Free Living Nematode populations and consequent damage by tobacco rattle virus to improve potato yield and quality – SCRI contact Dr Roy Neilson
Value to SCRI: £586,000
Consortium: Cygnet Potato Breeders Ltd (lead), McCain Foods (GB) Ltd, PepsiCo International, DuPont, The Cooperative Farms, Eden Research, Mylnefield Research Services Ltd, SCRI, SAC, Plant Health Care UK Ltd, Tozer Seeds Ltd, Dawnfresh Seafoods Ltd
Potato varieties with durable resistance to late blight and nematodes – SCRI contact Dr Ingo Hein
Value to SCRI: £338,608
Consortium: BioPotatoLimited; SCRI; University of Dundee (Professor Paul Birch) and University of Leeds
Molecular Improvement of Disease Resistance in Barley (MIDRIB)
– SCRI contact Professor Robbie Waugh
Value to SCRI: £69,000.
Consortium: Limagrain, NIAB, SCRI, UCL
Topics
Species
